Stalking the Perfect Word

Stalking the Perfect Word

I printed out a list of all the times the phrase tk appears in my novel. There are thirty-two variations, each appearing from one to sixteen times. These are the words that I left out while I was writing… and revising… with the intent of going back to double check the facts (so, exactly how many days did that take? Was that Tuesday or Wednesday?) or I planned to fill in the perfect word as soon as I found it.

Tk–for those of us who don’t know–is an abbreviation for “to come.” Since “tk” is basically non-existent in English, it makes it easier to search for than a tc. (At some point in the process, tk became tk(description of needed word no spaces) which means I mostly don’t have to look at the manuscript, itself to kill the words.

So, now all those words have to actually… well, come.

And I’m looking up what you call that part of a cave, and what you call that part of an airport. And just exactly what kind of vessel did I actually mean?

So, caves. By weird coincidence, the word for a room in a cave is… uhm… well, room. It’s not what I’m looking for, but it’s certainly an interesting coincidence.

And airports. You know where you park a plane? On an apron, apparently. No. that doesn’t work at all. Wrong mental picture, and the more familiar meaning stops the momentum of the story. We’ll just work around that word.

I have now interviewed about a million different words for “vessel,” and I think I may just stick with vessel. I’m really not sure I can call a rugged and manly man a lekythos, for instance.

One of my cultures has about a million different words for “husband” and I need… probably about half a dozen of them. Those may wind up being made-up words, at the rate I’m going.